The soundtracks are mainly composed of ZUN's synthesized original music and tracks remixed from his games. As there are some loose references to the rest of the Touhou Project in the stories in the CD jacket, the CDs are still considered part of the Touhou Project.

There is only one member of Team Shanghai Alice, who goes by the pseudonym "ZUN" and is the main programmer, scriptwriter, graphic artist, and music composer. His real name is Jun'ya Ōta(太田 順也,Ōta Jun'ya?), as seen in the credits of his early games. He was born in Hakuba, Nagano.[3] Fans respectfully call him "Kannushi" (神主), a name he has sometimes used to refer to himself. ZUN married another programmer in 2012.[4]

While not using the Team Shanghai Alice name, ZUN has also participated in the making of the following dōjin games for Amusement Makers, a game development club in Tokyo Denki University:

He also uses the pseudonym "ZUN" instead of Team Shanghai Alice when publishing commercial works:

Curiosities of Lotus Asia (東方香霖堂)

Touhou Sangetsusei (東方三月精), which consists of:

Eastern and Little Nature Deity

Strange and Bright Nature Deity

Oriental Sacred Place

Bohemian Archive in Japanese Red (東方文花帖)

Perfect Memento in Strict Sense (東方求聞史紀)

Touhou Bōgetsushō (東方儚月抄), which consists of:

Silent Sinner in Blue

Cage in Lunatic Runagate

Inaba of the Moon and Inaba of the Earth (月のイナバと地上の因幡)

The Grimoire of Marisa

In 2007, he was in a team named "The Drinking Party" (呑んべぇ会?) to make "Uwabami Breakers" (黄昏酒場～Uwabami Breakers～?), a shoot'em up game about drinking—one of ZUN's greatest passions. Since November 2009, he runs a column about beer on the manga magazine Comptiq called "Which Came First, Hakurei Kannushi's Games or Beer?" (博麗神主のゲームが先かお酒が先か?).

ZUN also collaborated with doujin circles other than Twilight Frontier and participated in some of the games they produced. So far, only two games by D.N.A. Software got him involved:

The name "Team Shanghai Alice" was chosen to fit the overall theme of the Touhou games. "Shanghai", in ZUN's mind, is a multicultural city where the East and the West meet. "Alice" can be a child living in the foreign concessions, but the name Alice also suggests a fairy-tale element. So together, "Shanghai Alice" encompasses the blend of oriental and western aesthetics along with fantasy. As for "Ensemble" (幻樂団, in the team's Japanese name), ZUN originally intended his team to be a musical ensemble so he named his team as such. As a piece of trivia: one of Touhou Project's characters is a magician/puppeteer named Alice Margatroid, and one class of her dolls is called Shanghai. Another character named Meiling has a theme song called "Shanghai Alice of Meiji 17".